Mary J. Blige My Life Poll

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have we done this? it doesn't seem like we have. (searching "my POLL" IS not illuminating.) this album is such an organic whole it seems wrong to split it up and rank the parts like this but what else is ilm for? it's not clear to me that there would be a consensus favorite, unless it's "be happy." not including the interludes, though i like them.

i remembered you saying that, Brainwasher, and i listen to share my world more these days, too, but my life is her most satisfying album as a coherent whole to me. (i know i'm just stating the consensus view there.) like you say, the accumulation of a mood and the telling of a story from beginning to end and just some sort of transcendence through the sadness or something?

yeah, my life is her most coherent work without question. I think it's that coherence that keeps me from loving it as much as I love Share My World - it's a very heavy, raw album and it takes a lot out of me whenever I listen to it.

imo only a heart of stone wouldn't have had to beat back an instant gleeful impulse for 411 - so many classic jams represented there (sprawled admittedly over 411, 411 remix, the odd 12, and time itself) but not necessarily a great listen-thru album the way it is a great cd or the seminal record of the 90s that it most probably is. and share my world is frequently excellent too, but all the same somehow never quite cumulates in that sense of magnificent abyssal totality that my life ends up leaving you with.

oftentimes i tend to find myself imagining chucky thompson having had this huge crush on mary while he was making this album, is that weird? the utterly silent, sadly noble kind where he'd know putting an arm around her shoulder would only ever be an awkward, inadequate kind of gesture.